Patrick McEvoy-Halston

DougBeardsley
English452lQ01
07 August2003

The OtherCrowdat A. M. Klein's "PoliticalMeeting"

(Outside,in the dark, the streetis body{all,

flowered with facesintent on the scarecrowthing

thatshoutsto thousands theechoing
of their own wishes.)The Oratorhasrisen! 15-18

We mightbe inclinedto interpretthededicationto CamillienHoude,in A.M. Klein's

"PoliticalMeeting,"asa genuinegestureof Klein's respectfor Houde'soratoricalskills,but it

\art-
c.r,,Y may also be a gesture of sympathy for a man "ensnared." For within the bracketed lines is
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contentwhich calls into questionthe orator's belief that he "has them (f 1), that he commands

"the" "crowd" (9). While the orator has "[an]other voice" (33), within theselines is another

crowd-a very different crowd, seemingly,from the one "[with]in the hall" (14). We meet a

"street" crowd, not a cowed "country" (20) crowd. We find this crowd, not caught "in snares"

seemingly
rhespeaker, to usehimasa '.thing,"u, utQ\ro ,"*i""
intending
g:Feplinr"n,,,on o
its own desires.

If the bracketedmaterialwasnot includedin the poem,therewould be little in that that

castsdoubton the suretyof the orator's dominionover his audience.The poem would relate

how anorator,"kith andkin" (29)with his folksycrowd,moveshis gullible,guidableaudience

to thoughtsof racewar. Whenhe movesfrom "sling[ing]slang"and"wink[ing] folklore" (36)

to "[c]alnrly''"speak[ing]of war" (38),theoratorshowsthatfrom thebeginningof his orationhe

hadhad a war-ptanin mind. He is a plotting andmasterfulmanipulator,and his audienceis

malleablestuff-we learnfrom thepoem'sopeninglinesthat"they [a]wait" (2) in

manageable,

"folding seats,""on tal t. . .1schoolplatform"(l), the "chairman's"arrivaland"praise"(2).

However,Klein's inclusionof thebracketedlinesensuresthat someuncertaintyexistsasto who

{
really was in control of whom at this political meeting.
 2

The bracketshelp suggestthat whateverthe natue of the materialthey enclose,it does

^-
f not quitefit with therestof thetext. (And inde€d,in this poem,it doesn't.)We mightnormally

construebracketedmaterialasoptionalreading,but for two reasonswe might not do so here:

One,we weretold thatthechairman'scharmdependson him being"full of asidesandwit" (12);

aboutelevations,includingthe"rise"
andtwo, we know thatthepoemis abouttransformations,

of the"Orator!"

Our first reactionto leamingof the "thousands""[o]utside"is likely to assumethatthey

arean extensionof the crowd found within the hall. We might assumethat thesethousands

theexpansivebreadthof the orator'sappeal,to cinchthe orator's

serve,by suddenlysuggesting

transformationfrom ordinary "chairman"to awesome"Oratof' at the end of line 18. But the text

worksagainstour likely instinctivedesireto conflatethe two crowdstogether.Becauseoneis

oneis "in the dark,"theotherbathedin "yellow t. . .l light"

"[o]utside,"the otherinside,because

(7), because with "streets"andthe otherwith "schoolplatforms,"thetwo

oneis asspciated
areA
crowds-hardly "kith andkin"---cannoteasilybe merged. Any crowd found "[with]in the dark"

would be menacing,a streetcrowd particularly so. And thoughthe "inside" crowd ravageda

"ritual bird' (9), theydo little but slavishly"[w]orshipandlove" (19)their "countryuncle"(20).

This "street" crowd, on the otherhand,at a distancefrom the orator,andharderto imagineas/

intimatelyinvolvedwith his "shouts"asthecrowdwithin the hall is with his "asides,"seems

,/ moremalevolentthan malleable,more studiousthan servile,andmore a potentialheavycounter-

weightto his influencethananeasily"pinlnedl" (26)lightweight"opponlentl(26).

"[T]he streetis body-tall,"it is a weightwhichmight aseasilyoverwhelmasenhance

the

"building" (13)oratoricalmass.Whenwe discoverthe semanticandrhythmic

orator/prophet's

"echoing"of the "street"crowds'"floweredfaces"in the "countryuncle's""sun/ower seeds"

Slr{"
s
,., existsin therelationshipbetweenthe orator
(26),our sensethatbothharmonyanddissonance
v
1r'\q.<s"'
---
.}\r,'rl-1
 3

and this crowd is enhanced.We suspectthat it is what will be madeof this crowd which matters,

but we questionwhat the orator can make of it. We cannotbe certain whether the street's

"flowered faces" are more likely to blossomor wilt in the presenceof a repellent"scarecrow

thing." Charactenzedas composedof "flowered faces" as opposedto, say, crowed

,/
countenances,this crowd still to
attends the "scarecrowthing" with someof the samestudious

"intent" that surely facilitated the orator's masterfulmanipulationof those within the hall. So

$e/ while the oratorhashis "tricks" (21), the streetcrowd might be eyeing its puppet: How certain
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can we be that someonewho servicesthe desiresof others,who "echo[es] / [. . '] [their] own

wishes," is in any sense,or at any time, their master?

at theendof thepoem,not
Tre "uoay-o/ourof race"(39)is whattheoratorsummons
a*-"$lr*
*e.-"\' "[t]hewholestreet"
fromthosewho"wait[ed]"in thehall,butfromthoseoutsidewhocomprise

(37). In retrospect,the repetitionof "ou's" in the bracketedlines ("Outside," "shoLtts,"

Db"' "hou"*ds") identifythis temporaryconfineasthe summoningcircleof the poem'spenultimate

invisible odour.No surprise,however,is the summoningof bodyodour-the

$trrfisitation-the
inevitable by-product of body heat-from this corporealstreetmass. No real "trick" (2I), either.

And so while there is no questionleft at the end of the poem as to whether the orator's rhetoric

was inflammatory, we are left somewhatuncertainas to what transpired. Did the orator usethe

crowd? If so, which crowd? If the crowd insidethe hall was directedtowardsthoughtsof war,

is it possiblethat the streetcrowd, at least,usedthe "seedpeddler" to bring to the surfacetheir

\f
\rdr own deeplyseededracistthoughts?

perhapsin "Political Meeting" Klein was bringing to the surfacea "grim" (38) possible

truth which many of us still hesitateto contemplate. No doubt, even with the comparative

ambiguity of the natureof the flowered/streetcrowd's relationshipto the orator, the potency of

the orator'spower is conveyedin the poem. Almost certainly,the poem was born out of a
 modernist'sdesirefor, and fearsof, the arrival of centtalleaderswho might unite a fractured

^societytogether.But perhapscontainedin its "shadow[s]"(38)is the terrifyingrealizationthat

Y,ffuouo", of "willingexecutioners"
of legions
unanitf"^ of theworldarisefromthe"wishes" -

fr*h*'dhagen) ts.*
IZSO*o'O')
-ct8<
workscited
Goldhagen,Daniel. Hitler's Willing Executioners:ordinary Gemuns and the Holocaust. New

York: Knopf, 1996.

Klein, A. M. '?olitical Meeting." 15 CanadianPoetsx 3. Ed. GaryGeddes.Don Mlls:

OxfordUP.2OOI.4142.

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